Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Eastern Europe/Evidence

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Sockpuppetry between RJ CG and Ilya1166[edit]

ProhibitOnions appears to suspect that RJ CG and Ilya1166 are each other's sockpuppets: [1]. While I'm not certain, I have a nagging suspicion -- based on their style differences -- that he's mistaken on this point, and these two are actually distinct people. It would seem the mistake arose from ProhibitOnions' horizon regarding these two users being limited to Bronze Soldier of Tallinn where, indeed, these two have been making rather similar edits. Digwuren 20:11, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It may be interesting to note, however, that RJ CG edited as 206.186.8.130 until June, and apparently occasionally still does. Digwuren 20:17, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I believe this has to be posted to the evidence section, not its talk page. And also you forgot the diff where PO expresses his suspicion of socking. I would like to see that too. --Irpen 05:14, 29 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
No I didn't. And as of "evidence section"; I have done my job and expressed my suspicion. If you want it to be supported by solid evidence, why don't you go out and find the evidence yourself? Digwuren 05:55, 29 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Standard practice is that the accusers present evidence against the accused first. As I'm not one of the accused, I don't see any problems with me providing evidence first. I've visited Tallinn for about a week in 2006, I've yet to visit St Petersburg, I'm told it's the "Venice of the North", so maybe one day. It's really a shame that some Russians feel the need to bully tiny Estonia and this has spilled over into Wikipedia. Martintg 07:16, 29 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
To avoid misunderstandings, I'm pointing out that my suspicion is not accusative by nature. To the contrary!
Of course, if Irpen keeps harassing me over expressing suspicions that might be useful to his side, I'll need to think twice before I'll do such a thing again. Digwuren 12:09, 29 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Otto ter Haar's involvement[edit]

Otto ter Haar is a quite infrequent contributor to Wikipedia. His involvement with Estonia-related articles is confined to less than two days, to June 2 and June 3. Yet, after five quite problematic edits to Jüri Uluots, he went on to [2] and [3]. After that, Petri Krohn has left him "friendly notifications" such as [4] and [5], invariably followed by Otto ter Haar's presence. One might almost think there's an off-Wikipedia relationship translating to on-Wikipedia unquestioning support at play here. Digwuren 23:20, 29 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I certainly had the impression that Otto's reaction was way overblown for the alleged offence of having his view on Estonian history called "quaint", but then opening the discussion by branding the article "Estonian nationalistic" POV is not really a civil way to start a discussion either. Odd that such an infrequent editor would choose the Jüri Uluots to edit, hardly a well known person. Perhaps he was fishing for a reaction. I'm kind of reminded of a soccer player taking a dive and writhing in affectated agony to get the referee to send off the opponent player. Martintg 01:22, 30 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Irpen hard at work on the M.V.E.i. front[edit]

An interesting exchange has taken place in Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Disruptive user. Digwuren 11:53, 30 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for providing the link. --Irpen 12:31, 30 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

RJ CG's involvement in Rein Lang[edit]

I would put my comment into context. Specifically, RJ CG had (most recently in [6] but also elsewhere) attempted to pretend that the issues were a matter of POV, and that accordingly, WP:NPOV requires Wikipedia to be blind about his side's assertions' faults. My comment was intended to remind him, within the narrow confines of an edit summary, that WP:NPOV operates (in structural sense, not in its meaning) differently in matters of fact and in matters of opinion.

As for RJ CG's behaviour towards Deskana, it has a reason. But since Irpen was so unnice towards me the last time I presented something usable to his side of the battlefield (and, in fact, exploited by Ghirlandajo on WP:AN to tar ProhibitOnions already), I do not see any value in expressing it. Digwuren 10:47, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Status of tarbija24.ee[edit]

tarbija24.ee is not an individual publication, but a special "portal" of Postimees. Articles that appear in this domain are usually printed in a separate "informed consumer" section of the paper edition. Furthermore, because postimees.ee and tarbija24.ee are ran off a same (slightly inconsistent) engine, articles published in one of them are available in the other, too -- and sometimes even so linked. (Similarly, when Eesti Ekspress, who normally uses ekspress.ee as its domain, links to articles of Eesti Päevaleht, another newspaper operated by the same concern, normally in domain epl.ee, they use epl.ekspress.ee for the domain.)

Thus, when referring to an article found in tarbija24.ee, the proper attribution is to Postimees. Digwuren 14:45, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Alright, I've changed it. --Deskana (talky) 14:47, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In regard to Deskana's evidence[edit]

Clerk note: Moved from main evidence page. Cbrown1023 talk 14:50, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Just one point in regard to his evidence, concerning Digwuren's statement: "Facts are facts and opinions are opinions. You are not entitled to your own facts, and even less to presenting them in Wikipedia.", which was presented as evidence of incivility. This I believe, is an example of one's cultural background making a difference in interpretation. This statement is apparently derived from a famous quote by the late US Senator Pat Moynihan: "You are entitled to your own opinion. You are not entitled to your own facts", thus it wouldn't be generally considered incivil. Martintg 23:46, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

While this is clearly cultural, it is not ethnic. Google finds 1920 matches for the complete phrase "you are entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts", and many more thousands for various paraphrases and commentary. Apparently, its most notable use concerns discussions regarding pseudoscience. Digwuren 02:04, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed you are correct. I've changed my statement to reflect the proper origin of the phrase. Martintg 04:00, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
As for confrontational, I find that it's rather late to refrain from confrontation after having been confronted with bogus accusations. Digwuren 13:16, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It is never too late to refrain from confrontation. DrKiernan 13:52, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
What you are saying means that once you meet a bully your best and only option is leaving the project.--Alexia Death the Grey 18:13, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
No. Stooping down to the level of a bully accomplishes nothing, especially on Wikipedia. Rise above it, don't fall to the bait. --Deskana (talky) 18:16, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You're quite mistaken. I was lampooning Irpen, who appears to be unable to present a case to the arbcom, rather than RJ CG. In fact, RJ CG is not significant enough to deserve any taunting. Digwuren 18:19, 8 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Lampooning anyone isn't acceptable. And please stop replying to people's evidence on the Evidence page. If you want to submit your own evidence arguing your point, then do it. So far you've provided little other than a link to an RFC. --Deskana (talky) 11:10, 9 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
So far, I haven't had the foggiest idea on what the case will be about. How could I know which evidence is relevant before the scope was clarified? Digwuren 22:31, 10 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk needed[edit]

I see that Digwuren continues creating threaded talk discussions at the Arbcom pages, this time at the evidence page. Could those be cleaned up? --Irpen 02:43, 9 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You, sir/madam Irpen, are a hypocrite. But I repeat myself.
Or would you like to offer an alternative explanation for your non-involvement when Ghirlandajo "created threaded talk discussions" in the Workshop page? In order to jog your memory, I would point out that you can't claim you weren't there, because you participated in this very thread! Digwuren 20:20, 16 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Please remain civil. And please see my comment at Wikipedia_talk:Requests for arbitration/Digwuren/Workshop#Clerk needed. Thank you, Newyorkbrad 19:33, 17 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Digwuren[edit]

Now that I know what the scope will be, I can prepare my case. Please allow until September 20, at least, as the case is not an simple one. Furthermore, I note that although FayssalF's accusations are not explicitly included in the declaration of scope, the ArbCom appears to intend them to be within this case's scope. Digwuren 22:30, 10 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment on statement by Martintg[edit]

"Petri Krohn[7], Ghirlandajo [8] and his compatriot Paul Pieniezny [9] attempt to paint Estonian editors as bad faith meat puppets"

Nun brichs mie die Klumpen. Nee, dan lieber "mir laust der Affe".

If User:Martintg thinks I am a compatriot of Ghirla, he's got his geography wrong: I am a German Belgian and Ghirla is Russian, as far as I know. Oh, and I also think someone who on his user page claims to have visited both Belgium and Flanders separately, not only has his geography wrong, but may even perhaps not be deemed completely neutral in nationalistic fights like these.

If there is a grammatical error and he thinks Petri and I are compatriots, then I withdraw my first comment. Petri must needs have something German in him. Dieses Blut läßt sich nicht verleugnen. --Pan Gerwazy 09:47, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I actually meant "comrade", not "compatriot". I don't see why you would think I claimed to have visited both Belgium and Flanders separately, note on my page also have the flag of Texas in addition the flag of the USA the intent being to indicate the region I stayed in within the country, nor do I see how indicating I stayed in the Flanders region of Belgium deems me not completely neutral in "nationalistic fights". Martintg 22:01, 21 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Pan Gerwazy, you should not be surprised to find yourself called Ghirla's compatriot or even Ghirla's sock (or mine for that matter.) People who disagree with certain editors on any issue, be it a content dispute or standing up to the propriety of their conduct in general tend to be called Ghirla's or Irpen's socks rather customarily. Even ex-arbitrator Dmcdevit was accused at IRC of being Irpen's sock (!) at one time by Suva simply for telling Suva to stop trolling at IRC #wikipedia IRC channel. So, if I have former arbitrators with the checkuser and oversight access among my socks, German Belgians can be Ghirla's compatriot. The sin is to simply agree with Ghirla or myself. If you do, you must be something fishy. Sock, compatriot or just "comrade", a new term Martin introduced. --Irpen 01:06, 22 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know what the big deal is, I meant "comrade" and corrected the text quite a while ago. Given Paul Pieniezny's comment in the diff I gave as evidence [10], your claim that I called Paul "Ghirla's sock" or suggested he was your sock is highly ironic. Not that Paul, having minimal involvement with articles that Digwuren and the so called "Tartu based accounts" happen to edit, would be in a position to form such a view expressed in the diff. And while we are on the topic of this so called "Tartu based accounts", how about you devote some time providing some evidence to the evidence page regarding your accusations against this group of otherwise uninvolved Estonian editors, rather than sniping here. Martintg 03:29, 22 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I am sure Irpen did not want to accuse you of being a sockpuppet. He was comforting me and referring to an incident some time ago, when I fell a bit down because of this (note that the guy later switched Polish communist to Polish nationalist and back - you are not the first one with the comrade trick). There were other things going on at the same time, but as far as I know I was never called a sockpuppet, but a meatpuppet yes. By the way, I did try to edit on the Soldier of Tallinn, but as you know, I soon gave up because of all the meat and sockpuppets overruling any sensible editing (and yes, there were some Russian IPs doing horrible things there as well). I have "met" Petri Krohn and Digwuren on other occasions - that is very easy to verify - but as Digwuren and others intend to turn this into an RfC against Petri and perhaps others, why should I give you diffs? And there are many Texan nationalists too, so the flag of Texas proves nothing.--Pan Gerwazy 11:06, 22 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
So you claim: "By the way, I did try to edit on the Soldier of Tallinn, but as you know, I soon gave up because of all the meat and sockpuppets overruling any sensible editing". Really?. Your one and only edit to Bronze Soldier was to change "nazism" to "fascism" here [11]. So were is the evidence of all the meat and sockpuppets overruling your sensible edits? Martintg 21:08, 22 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You are right. I was only one of many who did that (and I suppose the many edit conflicts I had, I have already forgotten) Though I at least explained on the talk page. Let me repeat, because the way Ghirlandajo presents it, I am afraid people may think I am a fighter against fascism, which I am not. I said it was relevant even though Italy had left the war, not because Schroeder had said it like that (let us be clear about it, and forget AGF: if the version with "nazism" had prevailed, "someone" would have come along and claimed he never said such a thing and deleted Schroeder), not even because (a lot of) people in the Soviet Union thought so, but because in the case of Estonia it was the simple truth: a significant part of the troops fighting the Soviet army in Estonia 1944-1945 were not German, but fascist volunteers from third countries (no, I am not counting Estonians): strangely enough, both the Walloon SS and Flemish SS (who had suffered great losses at the Narva river, however) were both fighting in this same sector. And I agree it is a bit awkward for Estonian nationalists that this was the case. As for the "senseless edit warring" versus "my sensible editing" (oh, often no more than copy editing, I agree) : Leopold III of Belgium, Lydia Koidula‎, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya‎. You are an Australian, why did you not notice the bad English in the last two articles (though why the hell they became a bone of contention, I still do not know - unless Digwuren wanted them to be)? I also noticed a catch-22 here: Westerners who noted Digwuren, like me and User:Otto ter Haar, are quickly dismissed as "not having had enough experience with Digwuren-Petri Krohn battles." However, if we insist or acknowledge that we have seen enough without at that time wanting to participate ourselves, the claim is made that we are not neutral enough because we are expatriates or communists. --Pan Gerwazy 00:58, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The issue here is that your claim "By the way, I did try to edit on the Soldier of Tallinn, but as you know, I soon gave up because of all the meat and sockpuppets overruling any sensible editing". I think this is misleading to ArbCom, implying there was some kind of massive disruption over your "sensible edits", which the evidence shows was no more than substituting one single word "fascist" instead of "nazi" in Bronze Soldier, nor was your edit reverted immediately, it was so trivial it was initially ignored. Yet you make a similar misleading statement to Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive261#Korp.21_Estonia_on_wheels "As far as the Bronze Soldier is concerned, any attempt of mine to keep the words "fight against fascism" in the text...was summarily reverted within minutes"[12].
Just as in the case of User:Otto ter Haar, who also participated in Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive261#Korp.21_Estonia_on_wheels after a single incident, your involvement here is highly suspect, as is your claim of neutrality. Analysis of your contributions to usertalk reveals almost 50% of your entire usertalk dialogue since you joined Wikipedia involves just four editors, Ghirla, Irpen, Alex Bakharev and Petri Krohn. You, Irpen snd Ghirla too easily claim your opponents are meatpuppets in this case, but I will soon present evidence to reveal who the real meatpuppet is. Martintg 03:48, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
By way of remark, I think Paul Pieniezny has changed his username in recent months, and used Pan Gerwazy before that. I do not yet know if it is relevant to your analysis. 泥紅蓮凸凹箱 04:29, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The analysis goes back to his first edit on 20 November 2005, so he has had quite a long period of collaboration with those four, particularly Ghirla. So there is no doubt in my mind that he is not a neutral player here, but wheeled in to provide the illusion of "community outrage" against against Irpen's so-called "Tartu based accounts". Martintg 05:32, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
In that case, the renaming didn't interfere with the analysis. The renaming happened somewhen between the May and September. 泥紅蓮凸凹箱 07:31, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Rename logs for User:Paul Pieniezny are clear. Suva Чего? 08:14, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Evidence by Suva[edit]

I thought for long time whether I post any evidence myself. Or take part of the case at all. I don't think there is any need. I could list hundreds of diffs of Ghirlas incivility and disrespect towards other editors but will it make any difference? He has faced several different cases with much more respected editors before and never any damage to his reputation was done. So why would I make any difference? Only thing I want to say is that it doesn't matter how many contributions one has done to wikipedia, he should still respect other editors.

As of me. I feel regret for one instance when I was blocked when I said "Why is biggest troll still throwing fæces around." That was bit incivil. It's mostly cultural difference it's common term in estonian. In english it would probably "throwing mud" or whatever. Trying to picture someone worse as he is. And I probably was quite upset in May when the incidents took place and I was personally unbalanced because my home town was being destroyed. Bar where my friends work was destroyed and some of my friends life was in real danger. And at the same time some people saying that Estonians are Nazis. Sorry I got emotional, and probably made some attacks.

As of any later edits. I don't feel any regret. Most of the diffs provided have important context which quite much changes their meaning if anyone bothers to investigate the issues. If they don't, feel free to indef block me. Maybe only way to get rid of harassment and stalking for me is to create another account. Not interested about the case any more. Bye. Suva Чего? 00:22, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

On "evidence" presented by Irpen...[edit]

Firstly, as of now I am not planning to present any evidence of my own, so I will reply to the accusations here. Secondly, can Irpen be warned for wasting everyone's time by presenting evidence that is - there is no other word - laughable - and furthermore, spending a month to collect that so-called "evidence"?

I am going to comment only in general, perhaps only those five diffs about me in detail (I wish he would at least gotten my name right. Well, he only had a month, cannot expect to have time for minor details, such as the name of another user. I fixed it now myself.).

Irpen, I guess I have to spell it in bold for you, as you have seen this repeatedly before, as proven by diffs you gave - and yet you insist on that slander. No Estonian mentioned in this arbitration case edits from behind Tartu University firewall. Those checkuser cases you mention don't have a single word about Tartu University firewall - which are, as I have shown before, cache.ut.ee and cache2.ut.ee, which resolve to 193.40.5.245 and 193.40.5.100 respectively (I used this tool to get the info, but since you probably won't trust me - and are a fan of IRC, do try //dns cache.ut.ee command). The checkuser cases were ridiculous, pretty much claiming that all Estonians are one single user. I suspect that the checkuser clerks even didn't bother with reverse DNS (didn't know what it is, perhaps) that would have given to a knowledgeable user clear indication of geographical locations of IP's and/or ISP's. For god's sake, Digwuren and I have different ISP's here - and yet the result was "Likely".

As for your WP:MEAT accusations - somehow you forgot to mention, that a whole lot of Estonian users joined Wikipedia during Bronze Soldier events, mostly because article Bronze Soldier of Tallinn was getting filled with anti-Estonian lies coming from Russian sources. What do you think, if article Russia would be filled with contents, such as, for example, "Russia is a huge proto-fascist country in Eurasia run by ex-KGB dictator, with a personal Putinjugend. Russia is currently home for five sixth of the world's neo-nazis", then Russian editors would not like to join Wikipedia to change that article? And like I said, somehow you skip over that important fact why there were about ten new Estonian editors in late April/early May... so nice that you at least try to be honest, Irpen.

You bring Ptrt (talk · contribs) as an example of "one-purpose accounts whose activity is limited to seconding Digwuren's opinions", yet forgetting to mention that particular person has a long history of activity in Estonian Usenet and forums. Obviously, it was Digwuren all along, preparing for years and years so he could bring in a short-lived sockpuppet. By the way, I think that the way you and RJ CG drove that user away from Wikipedia is worthy a block of its own. Overall, I think you, Ghirla and Petri have managed to drive away about four to five Estonian users, including hard-working user 3 Löwi (talk · contribs), who has been here since July 2005, and Klamber (talk · contribs), who has been here since January 2007. And I can see this arbitration case only as a continuation of that campaign, "Get rid of users, who we don't like.". Don't you all think that you've done enough damage to Wikipedia already?

You continue with "their activities started with a flurry of revert warring", suddenly including me to that section as well. Thankfully you provide differences, which clearly show why Digwuren was edit warring - he was trying to get rid of ethnically motivated POV and replace it with NPOV. You continue with a attempt to show that all Digwuren did at first was edit warring, while the truth is that he was hunting down sources and contributing to the article, reverting only cases of obvious disruption and POV pushing. Evidence? Here you go.

I will skip over the section where you accuse thinking that Ghirla's threats and AfD's are done in bad faith. From recent events it is very clear that they were done in bad faith - and if you like, we can have a small voting here about Ghirla's "good faith or not". I think you know what the result would be.

You may want to look at the accusation reverting with misleading edit summary again, as if you scroll down, it becomes apparent that the edit summary is correct - and most probably it was an edit conflict, not revert. Rest of those "revert warring" accusations are about as equally valid as this one.

Deleting articles created by Petri Krohn? Let us see what Digwuren has to say about placing them to fiction and arts, shall we:


[13]

In fact, you forget totally to include the fact, that the articles in those AfDs were unsourced original research. And you skip over the fact, that some of those articles were created by Bloomfield (talk · contribs), who is now permanently blocked (as a side note, I do believe him to be an early incarnation of Petri Krohn - or one of his sockpuppets. Very similar edit patterns and language. Alas, by now there is no way to prove or disprove it). I believe you can get more information about Bloomfield from administrator Renata3 (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), as she was the one dealing with that vandal, see here: "I was the one who identified and blocked the socks of user:Bloomfield. He created a number of articles, some of them are pure POVs (like some attack articles on "neo-fascists" in Estonia), some of them are not verifiable (like Palemonids that I merged just last night). He is keen on really obscure subjects, obscure spellings, unconventional sources."

And yet you continue "Even in English Wikipedia, they would communicate in Estonian, to prevent the comments from being read by other wikipedians.". Firstly, as far as I know, you provided diffs to only two occurrences where Digwuren has used Estonian in Wikipedia. Secondly, you haven't shown how they were intended to "prevent the comments from being read by other wikipedians". Thirdly, there is no rule or guideline that users cannot use other languages in their user talk pages. I must say I find this accusation highly racist and two-faced, as I do believe I've seen both you and Ghirla use Russian on occasion (I may be wrong there, as I will not bother with diffs unless required). And taking into account the harmlessness of content on both occasions that Digwuren has used Estonian - and that Petri Krohn understands Estonian...

Let us move on to stalking - highly appropriate subject, as you show up in all articles created by Digwuren, tagging them with various templates with reasons that have never been more then a bad case of WP:IDONTLIKEIT. I must admit that I don't understand, how Soviets-Forever! stalking of Estonian editors is not stalking and when Estonian editors check what other users are doing, it suddenly is. I must confess to stalking as well - I daily check the edits of Digwuren, Alexia Death - and lately also Suva and Martintg. So far they haven't complained; if they do I will stop doing so. And on occasion, when I see a name from Soviets-Forever! popping up in my watchlist, I do click on "contribs" link. I do believe it is there for a reason, as if you don't want your edits to be reviewed, perhaps your place is not on Wikipedia? I have no problems with other users looking at or scrutinizing my edits. Why? Because I don't do edits that I should be ashamed of or would want to hide from others. I sincerely recommend that to Soviets-Forever! - although admittedly, they would have no edits then.

Now we finally get to your accusations of my incivility. You've chosen to tear out few words from the sentence and present them without context - so what I will do is explain what they are about.

How nice of you to put it, "chimes in". Almost poetical, too bad it is derogatory personal attack from you.
That particular sentence comes from a long reply/question to Ghirla - after he posted a derogatory hate-filled pile of lies. None of his accusations have been proved to be true, quite the opposite. And naturally, as usual for Ghirla, he refused to reply to any of the questions, instead threatening me on my talk page [14].
I don't see what is uncivil about it. It is a common knowledge, that Petri has a grudge against Estonia/Estonians - and those are silly conspiracy theories that he pushed around, as proven by the fact that his original research articles have been invariably deleted by community consensus.
And...? Like I said before, Petri has a grudge against Estonians. Take, for example, his recent attempt to get Rene Reinmann, an article created by Digwuren, to be deleted. You can see AfD with a mountain of keep and his attempts to get article deleted, no matter what. Or just go to Petri's RfC and find a pile of evidence nicely laid out. Coincidentally, link is to Digwuren's edit, I am not sure what edit you mean. Could you please fix the link - on both evidence page and here?
Er... again, what is uncivil about it? Petri's (and coincidentally, yours) attempts of edit warring, lies and accusations have been highly amusing for me. Sad, but amusing. I fail to see incivility.
And exactly why didn't you include rest of the comment, namely "Please don't try to deflect the current discussion of your inappropriate behaviour by accusing others. As you have failed to respond in any other meaningful way, except threatening me, I think that Ghirla's "Outside view" can now be safely considered to be bad faith slander and lies, constituting to be WP:ATTACK.". Please do go and read his "outside view", it is bad faith slander and lies, I don't think anyone disagrees with that.

And finally - please avoid anything along the lines "To be continued". If you have any material, please post it so the accused ones can see it. I do hope you have something solid then, as your current accusations are half-truths and fragments of sentences torn out of context.

I must admit, I expected you had some actual proof, Irpen. I don't know if I am sad or relieved to see that it isn't so.

-- Sander Säde 13:57, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. The days of endless attacks on Baltic and Eastern European articles and editors and attempted promulgation of UNSOURCED UNVERFFIED UNSUBSTANTIATED Soviet historiography as an equally valid "viewpoint" balancing the "nationalistic" "political agendas" that the Soviets "occupied" territory during and subsequent to WWII must come to an end. Wikipedia has become a cottage industry devoted to the promulgation of said UNSOURCED UNVERFFIED UNSUBSTANTIATED Soviet historiography (lies) as NPOV neutral while extensively sourced materials inserted by Baltic and Eastern European editors--who have the sources, interest, and knowledge to contribute--are mercilessly attacked as political (even Nazist) slander of the Soviet legacy, and said reputable editors are assaulted until they decide they have no interest in continually defending themselves and their edits against baseless and endless accusations--and leave Wikipedia.
    Let's show some spine here and stop pretending this is some "good-faith" "content dispute" by two sides with "equally valid opinions." —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 21:51, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It merits notion that in Russian political discourse, the word 'fascism' means something different from the Western understanding of fascism. I've got a source ([15]) analysing the difference, originally for the article on Estonian Anti-Fascist Committee, but, alas, the source is in Estonian and is not yet wikified. 泥紅蓮凸凹箱 01:04, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I would be very interested in understanding that. Official Russian proclamations directly equate "Fascist = Nazi," one-for-one. It may be that when it comes to domestic Russian fascists, the discourse is different (that is, more in keeping with the generic meaning of "fascist," typically ultra-nationalistic, prone to violently oppress/attack others, generally xenophobic,...). —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 02:15, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'll raise it a bit in my list of priorities, then.
Very briefly, the article explains that in Soviet parlance, the word 'fascist' was used to refer to the image of 'enemy' — anybody who would fight against Soviet Union. Furthermore, modern Russian usage has adopted this "fascist = enemy" picture, except that now, a 'fascist' is one who (is presumed to) hate or fight against Russia's interests. In other words, Russian usage defines fascism through allegiance, not ideology.
It is true that Russian usage tends to not differentiate between what in English are called 'fascism' and 'Nazism', but this is easily explainable by the allegiance versus ideology aspect.
If you pardon a bit of not-immediately-sourcable finding (it's not my own, although my own observations appear to confirm it), Russian mainstream thought tends to vehemently reject any suggestion that a Russian person (not otherwise classified) can be considered 'fascist'. In what may appear peculiar to one who uses 'fascist' to refer to ideology or psychological outlook, the common objections to such classification include "He can't be a fascist — his grandfather fought against the fascists!" or "Stalingrad can't have fascists — it's a hero city that fought against the fascists!" Groups that are obviously fascist and have a degree of separation from the mainstream society (often stereotypically portrayed as consisting mainly of young people) can be discussed, but are described in other terms, such as "hooligans", "skinheads", "gangs", or, in some cases, "misguided patriots". The mainstream thought does not allow discussion of fascist phenomena in the mainstream society, usually even under pseudonyms such as totalitarian; however, such pseudonyms do not provoke as violent objection as the F-word.
The "(not otherwise classified)" part is important. There's a special case of Russian people whose classification of 'fascists' is considered relatively acceptable in the mainstream thinking, and that consists mainly of members of the Russian Waffen-SS units. In particular, see Kaminski Brigade and 30th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (2nd Russian) for details. However, for reasons too complex to be discussed here fully, yet reasonably simple to approximate by guessing, most Russian people do not like to discuss these units.
In Wikipedia, a recent line of thought alluding to the allegiance interpretation can be seen in [16].
Finally, considering fascism as it is understood by Western scholars (see also the related psychological concept of F-scale), recall the importance of a conceptual mortal enemy to any kind of fascist mindset. In an ironical fashion, Soviet fascism has chosen the concept of fascism — redefined in an Orwellian manner — to be one of its irredeemable enemies.
It is important to realise that this brief overview is about mainstream usage. This mainstream usage includes major political utterings, but many fringe sections of the society — and scholarly circles are a fringe in this sense — vary, in differing degrees, from the mainstream. Construing mainstream usage as any sort of generally valid stereotype would be counterproductive. As an example from completely different side of the Earth, just consider that USA's mainstream political stance over the appropriate approach to the Iraq question differs considerably from the majority's many opinions. ΔιγυρενΕμπροσ! 05:20, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That's really fascinating stuff. I'd ask you to source it and create an article Fascist(term), but I'm afraid you would have it cited here as further evidence of "grievous disruption". I guess censorship of potentially interesting topics is one of the consequences of this ongoing harrassmment. Sigh. Martintg 06:32, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A quick review shows that many of the diffs (whose long list looks impressive at first) are not agaisnt any of our policies or guidelines:

  • WP:MEAT - that several editors from the same tiny country registered around the same time can be well explained using some good faith. Suva has convinced me with this argument that media frenzy in Estonia drew statistically above average number of editors to this project. With inconclusive checkusers and plausible explanations, any arguments to the contrary are simply bad faith.
  • Creation of inflammatory templates for article space - I don't see anything inflammatory; but they are mostly WP:BJAODNish. As such, the users responsible should be warned not to create such stuff in mainspace - they can do so in their userspace. That said, at least one of the discussed templates survived TfD, so it appears that in the end, some useful tools were created.
  • Template the regulars - WP:DTTR is a nice essay - but nothing but (despite Irpen's attempts to turn it into a policy). To criticize users because they violate an essay is hardly serious.
  • revert warring: it takes two to tango (or in this case, over a dozen of editors is revert warring). To select one editor for punishment is bad; correct solutions involve protecting the article and/or putting it on 1RR.
  • stalking: or in other words, following users edits to collect evidence to present at ArbCom. Following 'user contribution' in that manner is hardly stalking.
  • incivility: indeed, exists, but on both sides of the noted discussions. Digwuren accuses Ghirla of trolling - bad. But is Ghirla accusing Digwuren of trolling any better? I think not. Hence I suggest civility parole on all involved users - simple and elegant solution that should immediately put an end to much of the ongoing problem.

-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  19:20, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment on evidence presented by User:Vecrumba[edit]

Vecrumba accuses Petri of calling his opponents "ethnofascists". I think his knowledge of English is at fault here: Petri actually used the phrase "ethofascist POV pushers" in a comment on another harassed user's talk page, he put "ethnofascist" between quotation marks and made it a link to a statement by another "ethnofascist" POV pusher, a Russian nationalist whom he had had problems with before. Ethnofascist is an adjective and refers to POV, but Vecrumba turns that into the substantive "ethnofascist". Basically, what is only a border case between criticizing the edit or the editor, is turned into a straightforward personal attack.

I have also had a look at the third link, an edit by RJ CG, and I invite anyone with an open mind to do the same. RJ CG 's edit summary is of course faulty: instead of "PC isn't really a Soviet phenomena", he should have written "PC isn't really a Stalinist phenomenon", but anyone who reads the version before the deletion and then the version after it, will agree that the deletion is an improvement. Does it delete the Soviet Union's attitude towards PC and therefore create a pro-Soviet or pro-Russian POV? Of course not: after RJ CG's intervention, the article still claims that the expression was derived from Marxist-Leninist sources and first used in the Soviet Union. The entire passage about Stalin was unnecessary and irrelevant. Perhaps incorrect too, because Stalin was notoriously good at eliminating his politically correct friends. Digwuren reverted that one as vandalism, an American editor later very correctly, put some "bad bit about communism" in the passage on the Russian genesis of the term. And also deleted "entire article sections on Soviet versions of "political correctness" "(quoting Vecrumba, in fact this was 5 lines in bad English and with no fewer than seven links - a showpiece section). RJ CG 's second edit quoted is of course POV, but so is the original. A plague on both your houses. Some Estonians willingly joined the SS, most however semi-willingly and therefore more or less conscripted (you lost your job and rations if you did not). When the Soviet Army reached the Estonian border, members of the pre-Soviet government called on people to join the German war effort against the Soviet army: were those who joined then "conscripted"? And some Estonians joined after deserting from the Soviet army, but I suppose those were not meant here? Basically, this was POV pushing on both sides, "let's not forget to always mention that they were conscripted" versus "we do not need to say that every time, and not all of them were" .--Pan Gerwazy 02:38, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If someone is called "a racist XYZ" or simply "a racist," the operative word is "racist." Your contention that I am somehow overreacting with a "personal attack" by saying I and others are characterized as ethnofascists because "ethnofascist" was originally used in the adjective and not noun form is--you'll have to pardon me--completely lost on me. You are suggesting I overreacted to Petri's lack of command of the English language? You doubt that Petri meant ethnofascist? Or am I misunderstanding you?
Ethnofascist POV. Ethofascist editing. "Blame the edits, not the editor." --Pan Gerwazy 11:16, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Excuse me, are you suggesting I and others are guilty of ethnofascist editing? And Petri and others are simply reacting to edits? I think not. See my citation of "ethnofascists" in NOUN accusation form. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 13:36, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
As for "having problems", what do you call it when someone says that if you are against Soviets, it's hard to tell you from a real Nazi? Or someone else contends that most Latvians were glad to pick up rifles to murder Jews? How does this make it a bi-lateral having of problems? I reached out to Petri (before finally learning the gap could never be closed) in particular asking to understand the basis for his stridency regarding anti-Soviet = Nazi. Dead silence.
As for a "plague," I have been waiting for months for anyone to produce a single source that Latvia was taken over legally by the Soviet Union as the Russian government has proclaimed. Dead silence. But no stemming of the flow of contentions that Wikipedia is being assaulted by Baltic and Eastern European "nationalists."
As for the other POV, that Latvia is simply the continuation of Latvia from 1920-1939, please tell me why, if that is the case, Latvia no longer has to obey the Versailles treaties on equal rights for minorities. --Pan Gerwazy 11:16, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
When the worldwide Russian media outside Russia descended upon Latvia some years ago for their worldwide conference, ready to pillory Latvia, even representatives of the Duma admitted that the actual situation they observed in Latvia was not as had been portrayed by their government and Russian activists. When the Russian army "left," thousands remained, claimed their prior state-provided apartments, and as retired receive a pension from Latvia. (More than 40,000 are retired in Latvia. Why would you choose to retire in a country in which you are oppressed by ethnofascists?) Russian army returning to Russia had no barracks, no salary. Russians attempting to return to Latvia were derided as "Latvians" and given no assistance whatsoever. Latvia treats the symbol of its oppressor: retired Red Army, better than Russia treats "her own." Oppression of Russians is a politically motivated complete and total fabrication which I am sorry to see you have completely bought into. At least I now know where you stand, you do believe that Balts are ethnofascists. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 13:36, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
P.S. Sorry, should have realized earlier, as you believe it's some sort of badge of honor or at least amusing to associate yourself with the KGB. Per the userbox on your user page (with centering added):
This user is a paid member of the KGB Internet troll squad.
 —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 14:17, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely not funny and insulting to many Russians, although I understand that most Western leftists don't care about their past sufferings. I am opposed to any censorship, so it is up to Pan Gerwazy/Paul Pieniezny to decide what should be placed on his page, but this is quite telling. The worst kind of Russophobia I have ever seen, quite surprising for a person who is so quick to call others Russophobes. Colchicum 16:23, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Insulting to "many" Russians, and therefore russophobic? Well, let's wait for the next elections to find out how many exactly. Though of course at this moment it looks like those "many" Russians are going to propose someone who is not eligible anyway, just to make the point that they do not get any votes because their candidate got rejected. As for "funny", I cannot help it if you and others still think that there is a KGB outside Belarus and that the subject KGB Internet Trolls needed an article on Wikipedia. Wake up, the Cold War has finished. As for this particular joke, it is also (and only) on Petri Krohn's page, but being a "Westerner" I thought I should add he word "paid". As for Vlad being my friend, since you have already browsed my entire contributions list, you will probably have noticed that I told him to cooperate with other contributors([17]), and that I had difficulties with him later (since he suddenly criticized edits of mine all over the place). --Pan Gerwazy 09:59, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
P.P.S. Sorry, should have realized even more earlier, considering your apparent alliance with Vlad Fedorov, who (1) has been banned for a year for disruptive behavior and (2) despite his claim that my "ignorance in international law is legendary", failed to produce a single reference to counter the assertion that the Soviets occupied Latvia for the duration, not to mention his being completely incorrect on his most basic of facts (as in, asserting the Soviet Union never became party to the Kellogg-Briand Pact).
    Moreover, I was sorely vexed to see that on your current user page you've deleted the lovely picture of the Tõnismäe monument (to see it, same diff, just scroll down for full page content), which you captioned: "Kicking your opponent when he's down, is bad. Kicking him when he's six feet under, is worse, it is stupid!"
    Of course, were I to voice the opinion that you are an (Estophobic POV) (pusher) -- Irpen has a way of misinterpreting my groupings of words, that is more for his benefit to understand I am not slandering you -- then it would be only a comment on your edits; after all, English is my second language--I would certainly not suggest that you personally are an Estophobe. Terviseks! —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 15:24, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I would like to note that it was Colchicum who initiated RfC about Vlad_fedorov. Whatever his bias might be (and I do not see any), he is one of the best editors on modern Russia topics. With all my respect, please avoid such personal comments. This is harmful for everyone involved.Biophys 21:12, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Poor nesting, if you look through timestamps, my Terviseks is directed to Pan for his kicking the dead when they are buried photo caption. I agree completely with Colchicum. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 00:37, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
A last edit (I am awfully busy at work and my mother is in hospital after suffering a heart attack): I put up the picture precisely because it was deleted from [User:Kuban_kazak|Kuban kazak]]'s user page by an admin who had fallen for some admin shopping (guess by what group of contributors?) on the ANI board. Petri Krohn, yes him again, restored the picture there. If you think that the phrase "Kicking your opponent when he's down, is bad. Kicking him when he's six feet under, is worse, it is stupid!" is Estophobic (oops another google for Digwuren's favourite Wikipedia article), please tell the Town council of Tallinn, or, better still, some Westerners who know what happened during WWII. I deleted the picture after some time, because I think that both user pages which overtly state the user's POV, or, on the contrary, state that "this animal is more neutral than others" (by mentioning every nationalistic insult the user ever received (I also have a funny collection of those) are silly user pages. But since you are now vexed by its disappearance, I promise to put it up for one day on November 11th, the day when Belgians commemorate the dead of both World Wars. --Pan Gerwazy 09:59, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
As for when the Soviets were reinvading, suggesting that anyone in the Baltics fought the Soviets out of their loyalty to the Nazi cause as has been pushed is nothing but an attempt to discredit the Balts and justify Soviet actions. Before that, the Waffen SS were conscripted. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 03:49, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Normally, a country only uses conscription on its own territory. Inhabitants of Czechia, the Alsace and Eupen-Malmedy were conscripted into the Wehrmacht. French and Belgian fascists served in the SS Volunteer Units. I agree (read what I wrote) that under the different conditions prevailing in Estonia and Latvia, what superficially looked like volunteering may have been tantamount to being conscripted. However, claiming that in 1941-1943 there were no volunteers is silly. Our Wikipedia article on Schutzstaffel has always been free from East European bickering. And look what they say about Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. I know of course that by mentioning it here, it will become a battle field too. This is what all officers of the Wehrmacht and all memebers of the Waffen SS had to swear: "Ich schwöre bei Gott diesen heiligen Eid, daß ich dem Führer des Deutschen Reiches und Volkes Adolf Hitler, dem Oberbefehlshaber der Wehrmacht, unbedingten Gehorsam leisten und als tapferer Soldat bereit sein will, jederzeit für diesen Eid mein Leben einzusetzen." Although France did not accept the legality of the Baltic annexations, they did send some Estonian SS men (a minority, I can source that, not the Latvians, but I guess they were treated the wame way) back to the Soviet Union.--Pan Gerwazy 11:16, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, in Latvia, for example, only the first 300 conscripts to the Waffen SS were forced to swear allegiance. No other Latvian Waffen SS ever swore allegiance, and all wore the Latvian flag under their uniforms, hoping for the day they could also drive the Germans out. And true Latvian fascists, in fact, demonstrated a virulent hatred for the Germans--who, since you seem to be oblivious to Baltic history--had ruled over the Balts for more than seven centuries. To suggest Balts had any allegiance to the Germans is patently ludicrous. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 13:36, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps I would also misinterpret Roobit's: "We face an outlandish situation here where a gang of dedicated ethnic nationalists and ethno-fascists from the Baltics, primarily from so-called Estonia, which is today the real center of ethnic hatred and official neo-Nazi malfeasance in Europe and the world,..."
You are not on the receiving end--this is not simply a benign "good faith" POV difference. And you will note that in this case ethnofascists has been used in the suitably offensive noun form.
And for this a "plague" on both our houses because I am somehow being equally unreasonable and am misunderstanding these vile contentions? —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 04:10, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You know very well that the tiff between Petri and Baltic editors started when Petri compared attempts not merely to put Soviet and Nazi occupation of the Baltics on a par, but to actually put them in the same article (I wonder which neutral historian ever dreamed of doing such a silly thing) to attempts to whitewash the holocaust by trying to put Soviet atrocities in the same category as the Holocaust. You know very well what Petri really indicated by linking to Roobit's text. He wanted to illustrate what ethnofascist POV is according to him. And as I said above, at that time Petri probably remembered very well the differences he had had with Roobits editing. Your attempt to equate Roobit with Petri or even Grafik, is childish and I hope neutral westerners looking at this will see through it. And of course, I note that since his opponents are unable to provide an instance where Petri actually called an editor a Holocaust denier, ever since the start of the tiff, every accusation against Petri must necessarily contain a statement about him getting close to that. --Pan Gerwazy 11:16, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Tiff? There was never any attempt at "equating" of Holocaust and Soviet occupation. However, since you bring up alleged comparisons, here's a real one: under STALIN the Jews suffered more deportations proportionally than any other ethnicity (5,000 in Latvia alone) and were dealt with particularly harshly in the Gulag. The purpose of a single article was to develop and highlight how the Nazis and Soviets (1) divided up the Baltics and Eastern Europe in a partnership and (2) then during successive invasions used, magnified, and misassigned each others atrocities for propaganda purposes. Grafikm_fr maintains most Latvians were glad for the opportunity to pick up rifles and kill Jews. Another misunderstanding on my part? I'm sorry, but it would appear you have no knowledge of the topic here, otherwise you would not accept as fact (as evidenced by your statements here) all the anti-Baltic propaganda that Russia and Russian "activists" continue to churn out.
Russia has a rich and wonderful culture and Russians have much to be proud of. However, I fail to see where glorification of the Soviets and equating anti-Soviet with pro-Nazi furthers the world embracing Russia in her emergence from the Soviet era. Instead, Russia rehabilitates (2004) the bust of Felix Dzerzhinsky to the courtyard of the Moscow police. This, today, would apparently represent the promotion of Russian cultural achievements during the Soviet era. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 13:36, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Where Petri "actually called an editor a Holocaust denier"? Here you go:

(straight from Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Petri_Krohn#Baseless_accusations_of_Holocaust_denial.) -- Sander Säde 11:33, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Now, as for "Soviet and Nazi occupation of the Baltics on a par, but to actually put them in the same article (I wonder which neutral historian ever dreamed of doing such a silly thing)" Seems that quite a lot of scientists have no issues with putting all occupations "in the same article", see even this simple search, especially I would recommend this book, written by David J. Smith from University of Bradford.
And how can you even claim that "attempts to whitewash the holocaust by trying to put Soviet atrocities in the same category as the Holocaust"? Who has ever said something like that? What has attempts to represent horrible Soviet murders and deportations to do with denying Holocaust? You don't make any sense whatsoever. Does it lessen one crime if it is compared to another? -- Sander Säde 11:51, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment on evidence presented by User:Piotrus[edit]

I request anyone who read the Piotrus' statement to actually click on the diffs Piotrus presents to support his claims. For instance, he claims I accused Balcer of Xenophobia. I never did such a thing. All I did was to try him to stop bringing such horrific accusations against myself which he has done repeatedly. For the rest, do click on Piotrus' diffs and read the threads. They speak for themselves. Thanks, Piotrus, for bringing them here. --Irpen 07:29, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I checked out the diffs. I had no idea your harassment campaigns were that wide by their grasp.
I realise that I'm waxing Quixotic here, but Wikipedia needs to put an end to behaviour like this, or it is doomed to become a cesspool. It is impossible to do encyclopædic work in an environment like what you've been creating.
I guess a case could be made that I, or Alexia Death (from you yourself praised), or Suva alone have lesser contribution potential than Irpen. It would be a bad case, but it could be made. Such a case would be much less plausible for Balcer. And when the scales hold a dozen of editors from various areas, with various perspectives and experiences -- including Lysy, Alexia Death, and Balcer -- on one hand, and you alone on the other, the choice is clear: you, and not the dozens of other people, are the problem. Wikipedia just can't afford to keep losing good editors because of your abrasive personality, and it does not matter an iota if you think you're doing it out of a holy nationalist crusade or because you're a paid KGB troll. 泥紅蓮凸凹箱 08:33, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
But you don't dispute that you accused him of "sneaky attacks" or "intellectual and academic dishonesty", do you? I am interested in what other editors and particularly ArbComers have to say: is such tone and harassment allowed in our project? I know you show no remorse and are convinced it is.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  14:43, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, so you take the "xenophobia"-part back do you? That's a welcome first step. Would you mind striking it off (do not delete as others see the fact that your statement included unsubstantiated accusation that you are now taking back.) And yes, I think Balcer's repeated attacking sources amounted to intellectual dishonesty. Your pulling out half a sentence from the context produces a misleading effect. I think what I said was warranted as would be seen to anyone, arbitrators included, who actually care to click on your supposedly incriminating "diffs". I hope they will. --Irpen 16:38, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Digwuren's entry above very well illutrates the conduct of this user. --Irpen
So, Piotrus, I take that it is unacceptable to mention "sneaky attacks" but acceptable to call other users "paid KGB trolls"? (see the comment above). Double standards again, I see... -- Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 16:58, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry, Pan Gerwazy's user box stating "This user is a paid member of the KGB Internet troll squad" has been somehow misintepreted? Pan is not paid by the KGB to troll for trolls? —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 17:08, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict)Sigh... Grafikm_fr and Irpen, you may want to take a notice that Paul does have an infobox "This user is a paid member of the KGB Internet troll squad." on his user page. Apparently he does not realize that his attempt of joke is highly insulting to millions who suffered in the hands of KGB, not to mention insulting to the memory of the dead - consider an userbox "This user is a paid member of SS Jew Burning Squad" as a comparison.
So basically you are accusing Digwuren and Piotrus calling Paul something that is on his user page? Good job guys, keep up the high standards. -- Sander Säde 17:13, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Irpen: "For instance, he claims I accused Balcer of Xenophobia. I never did such a thing."
diff: "What is unacceptable and dishonest is the wholesale brushing aside of the referenced info through disingenuous argument aimed at the character assassination of the the authors, wikipedians or academic, without any doubt, scholars, based on facetious arguments that your colleagues who edit WP with you for years hold xenophobic views or the academics that worked in this or that country or that many years ago or that some other author who published a totally unrelated article in the 86-volume collection published crap."
   Someone with racist views is a racist. You accuse Balcar of calling you a xenophobe, plain and simple. It is not a verbatim accurate quote by Piotrus, however, it is quite clear you used the "xenophobe" word with reference to Balcar--that is the whole point--a point you choose to completely ignore and even attack Piotrus asking him if he's taking back his statement. Attack based on syntax of statement and ignore substance of statement and your own original statement. And you accuse others of intellectual dishonesty? Is it only my sense this is more of the pot calling the kettle black? —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 17:04, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, Balcer implicitly but clearly accused me of holding xenophobic views and I hold his daring to say this to me very seriously. A significant part of the infamous Carnildo affair was the grievous unwarranted accusations the latter brought up against Giano accusing him of "hate speech". Xenophobia is a form of hate views and I do not take accusations of racism lightly. I am on the record about being consistent that such stuff cannot be taken lightly. Differentiating between accusing someone of "holding xenophobic views" and accusing someone in "calling others xenophobes" is not a difference of the "syntax of statement". I never called Balcer a racist, a Russophobe, an anti Semite or anything of that sort and I honestly do not view him such. He was one of only two Polish editors who contributed significant and valuable content to the articles about crimes conducted by their countrymen. For such a long-term prolific content editor his resorting to such name calling was a much serious matter than when such is done by, say, Digwuren, who screams the Russophobic statements even all over IRC. Yes, I think I had every right to tell Balcer that his saying such stuff won't be tolerated.
And intellectual dishonesty is a separate issue. I urge the arbitrators to read the discussion and see for themselves whether my calling Balcer's conduct towards sources as intellectually dishonest was warranted. In doing so I in no way made any xenophobic remarks. In fact, I never ever made any xenophobic remark as I hold all sorts of haters in the lowest regard. --Irpen 17:17, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Just in case our busy ArbComers don't have the time to read the diffs, let me make it simpler and quote Balcer comments that evoked so much venom from you (please correct me if they are not the right ones): 1) "I find your particular attachment to a source published over a 100 years ago, with all its inherent bias, rather puzzling. Is there something about the POV prevalent in 19th century Russia that is particularly to your taste? and 2) "Quite frankly, given the opposition to racism you have manifested in the past, I am somewhat surprised that this text has not elicited more outrage and dismay from you, and that you are happy to dismiss it as harmless." I don't see anything offensive in those comments. You do commonly use controversial and outdated sources - in addition to the 19th and early 20th century sources that led to the discussion with Balcer at Kiev Expedition (1018), I can name other examples: it took me and Halibutt weeks to show that claims of your 19th century source in (now Featured) Warsaw Uprising (1794) were false; and it took me and Balcer weeks to make you stop citing Mikhail Meltyukhov's book, whose academic reviews criticized it for "Stalinist and neoimperial concepts" and containing "shocking falsehoods"). And your defense of Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary, a publication much more biased and inaccurate then 1911 Britannica (which as its own POV tag, a project dedicated to clean-up, and was recently criticized by Jimbo in NYT interview) was quite suprising, particulary as Balcer and others many times showed some very inaccurate and biased (anti-Semitic, anti-Polish, anti-Ukrainian) articles from that source. But in any case, Balcer apologized to you (I would like to see you apologize to me or Balcer once) - which didn't spare him from your accusation of "academic dishonesty" in reply, which directly led to him leaving the project. Bottom line is, we all have our biases. It is not recommended (WP:SPADE) to note them, but they are a fact; your refusal to admit that you have any biases results in others pointing them out - but they are certainly far from accusations of xenophobia or such (you have still failed to demonstrate where Balcer accused you of xenophobia; but you have repeated this and similar claims often enough to make that user leave the project rather than face such slander). Such claims, part of the tactic of harassing editors who disagree with you, is what needs to be remedied.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  19:24, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I accuse you of accusing them of accusing you of accusing him of accusing those of accusing these in accusing that of xenophobia! And only dare to accuse me of accusing you of accusing them of accusing you of accusing him of accusing those of accusing these in accusing that of xenophobia! Because that is uncivil! Suva Чего? 19:11, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

WP:SPADE and WP:KETTLE (particularly 'testing the limits') are an interesting reading. But let's not forget that the issue is WP:HARASS. The bottom line is that editors are getting chased of this project via harassment. How does that happen varies from case to case: some are baited into flaming discussions they hate, other leave before they are forced to loose their temper - but in the end, the pattern is clear: incivil atmosphere created by some (experienced) editors, which makes other leave (or get baited and blocked). -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  19:29, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Piotrus, your long record of gaming WP:CIV continues. If there was something incivil (maybe not incivil but anyway grossly offensive) was Balcer's repeatedly pulling the unwarranted accusations of myself in holding the xenophobic views out of the blue. And since this was not the first incident, I did not take this stuff lightly anymore. Only when this was done for the fifth (!) time I finally gave this a strong response. I consider such accusations to be very serious and I never ever uttered a word that would open myself to such accusations. --Irpen 04:15, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Let's come back to the case in point and see what's going on here. Piotrus made a musing remark in response to Suva's observation, and added an observation of his own. Irpen is obviously irked by this observation, but he does not comment the problem. Instead, what he does is dispensing vague accusations towards Piotrus. In the very thread discussing the inappropriateness of driving people away through overt hostility, you're attempting to drive people away through overt hostility.
Considering that it's obvious that you're not interested in a civil discussion on your own, but instead attempt to get rid of everybody opposing you, I have no choice than to draft up a temporary injunction proposal against further unbacked accusations in this arbitration case. ΔιγυρενΕμπροσ! 05:02, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Go draft something. I do hope something can be done to bring this workshop to the arbitrator's attention at last. I did comment on the problem. Piotrus' brought in some weird claims totally unsupported by the very diffs he cites. Nothing new. If you would see his Piaskownica where he was collecting his diffs on me since March and actually clicked on them, you would have still seen nothing significant. --Irpen 07:13, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a systematic harassment of editors?[edit]

Irpen claims only me and Diwurgen share this view. I'd ask interested parties to comment in workshop (Systematic harassment of opposed editors and Harassment parole, which is more likely to be read by ArbCom members.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  19:43, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Piotrus, just do some emailing around (I assume that you would, as usually, prefer behind the curtain communication). You know who are the editors who hold the grudge against me and will be eager to join in. You can start from Hillock. He would be eager to join the party. I very much hope that this idea will be actually voted by the Arbitrators. --Irpen 20:20, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, quite unlike you and Ghirla, who just "happen" to work as a pair all the time - such as here, posting "evidence" within hours, not duplicating each others "evidence" - or ProhibitOnion's case when you promised "to write something up" and previously uninvolved Ghirla posts to AN. I am quite sure they are just coincidental and you have never heard of user Ghirlandajo before. -- Sander Säde 20:31, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I regularly check the contributions of Ghirla as I do to some editors I respect. I assume he checks my contributions too. Do you want a list of editors whose contributions I try to follow? I don't make a secret of it and none of these editors include my frequent opponents. For one, I never check Piotrus' contributions (as explained here) despite I see him commenting on most every issue I am getting involved finding pages where he could not possibly get to otherwise than by following me.I mean, fine. He already demonstrated that he logs my edits carefully and methodically. I can't prevent him from doing so similarly to how Suva and Digwuren stalk Petri. This is purely an ethical conduct issue and ethics is unfortunately never considered by the ArbCom. --Irpen 20:42, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If you "never" follow contributions of your "frequent opponents", perhaps the Arbitration Committee would like to hear your version of the circumstances under which you arrived at Denial of Soviet occupation, only to commence sterile editwarring over the WP:GA tags. To me, this article is special because it's my first WP:GA. Why would it matter to you? ΔιγυρενΕμπροσ! 00:48, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
This is very easy to explain, Digwuren. After a long ago incident explained here I watchlisted the DYK announcement page. It is easy to check that Martin's DYK proposal of this historiographic masterpiece was posted at 01:18, 23 September 2007 (UTC). Until seeing this at DYK suggestions page I was totally unaware of this page and it is easy to confirm that my first edit to it was made at 19:39, September 24, 2007. I admire yours and Piotrus' dedication to review my contributions but I really have better things to do in my life than pay you back with the reciprocity. I hope your curiosity is satisfied. Do you have any other questions on how I got to your articles. If so, feel free to ask at my talk and if my answers are unsatisfactory to you, bring this back to this arbcom. TIA, --Irpen 01:27, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Alas, Petri hunting for articles in which to push his Holocaust denial theories is upstanding editing while editors who check on his edits (given his past accusations of Holocaust denial) are sinister stalkers. Your contention that the latter are behaving unethically and your bemoaning that ArbCom does nothing about them are a prime examples of what can only be described as the very lack of ethics you ascribe to others. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 21:39, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I would only welcome if the ArbCom would finally stop limiting its scope to the blalant violation of 3-4 Wikipedia policies and addressed the ethical conduct as well. If it starts doing so from this case, I hope it would set an important precedent. A large part of the Piotrus' case rested on the ethics of his conduct. Arbcom in the end threw its hands up and issued the most non-decision decision in its history seeing this "too complex" to get involved. I see this case much narrower one. Two editors were trolling Wikipedia since early May and violated every policy there exists. If, however, ArbCom is willing to widen the scope of this case and address some more general issues that it hesitated to address at Piotrus case, I would only welcome such development. --Irpen 22:00, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed you are correct, but unfortunately the community failed to deal with these distruptive editors, who really have no excuse for incivility and edit warring by virtue of their long experience. The first by having his RFC/U prematurely deleted, the secong having his RfA case dismissed by going offline for the month the case was open. Note that Ghirla's case was temporarily dismissed without prejudice to a request by any party to reopen it in the future if necessary, so if you are unsatisfied with the way ArbCom handled Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Piotrus, you ought to request Arbcom reopen Ghirla's case. Martintg 23:21, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Martin, it does not matter to me which specific case would finally address Piotrus' conduct. Since he wishes to broaden this one to to include myself, himself, Ghirla and whoever and Arbitrators would agree to such widening the scope, fine by me. Piotrus and I happened to agree that the closure of his case with none of the parties' concerns being addressed served no good purpose. There are currently two motions on the RfArb page in relation to this closed without decision case precisely because its closure without decision left all the wounds fully bleeding. This case, originally, is much more simple. Digwuren and Suva are rude revert warriors whose main Wikipedia activity is to carry on their political crusade violating every policy we have. Also, I am concerned about the support their activity receives from a small group of other editors. If the arbitrators think that they are now ready to deal with global problems that plague the EE segment of the Wikipedia, something they were unwilling to do in Piotrus case, they are free to broaden the scope of this case. I would like to hear the decision on Digwuren's and Suva's conduct. If we get a decision on mine, Piotrus', Ghirla's, Vecrumba's and your conduct on top of this, fine by me either way. --Irpen 23:56, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Backpedalling sooo fast? You've only had, what, a month, from when you declared the case "crystal clear", and after this brief 42-day glance at the evidence, you want to widen the scope? My, my, you should at least give a chance to the evidence there is before you wander off to kill some more. ΔιγυρενΕμπροσ! 00:56, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
What backpedaling? The disruptiveness of your and Suva's activity is crystal clear from the onset and nothing changed in your conduct even in view of the ongoing arbcom. All I am saying is that if the arbitrators find it necessary to broaden the scope and issue the region-wide remedies, something they were unwilling to do back then in Piotrus' case, I would happily accept their decision. This does not in any way makes your own conduct less grievous. --Irpen 01:27, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hang on a moment, since when did Suva become a part of your focus, the original case was against "Digwuren and the Tartu based accounts", being those parties in Digwuren's checkuser case. Suva was never in that checkuser case and besides, he lives in Tallinn. What did he do that had promoted him from obscurity to beyond the rank and file of the accused, into the stratosphere of "grievous" misdeeds that you have accused Digwuren of? Martintg 01:54, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You may read my evidence statement and see for yourself. The scope of the case always gets more precise (or widens) as the case is being investigated. The number of accounts that popped up or got activated in end-April early-May originally confused me. Now that I was paying more attention to the particular names, I stated myself that, eg. Alexia's account is relatively benign while Suva is a trouble-maker of Digwuren's scale. If you want to rename the case retroactively to Digwuren and Suva, I would have no objections. You may even call for renaming it to Irpen-Digwuren for what I care. Names of the cases and the initial parties that take part in it do not limit the scope of the arbitration cases. Arbitrators frequently adjust the scope of the case as they see fit and apply remedies to the parties not originally listed. Some people here resorted to the same old, calls to crucify Ghirla. Piotrus suddenly showed up with his grudge against myself. I won't be surprised to see Hillock showing up after Piotrus calling for a head of Kuban kazak. In the end of the day, arbitrators will determine how wide or narrow the scope of this case is going to become. --Irpen 02:05, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Irpen, it is no news that Piotrus has been more than eager to forge an alliance with everyone whose agenda includes an unhealthy dose of Russophobia, no matter the amount of incivility and disruption associated with such an "ally". I don't give a hoot as to why he decided to bring his grievances to the case whose scope has been limited by the ArbCom to the "Estonian-Russian ethnic dispute", but this decision goes some way towards characterizing his wider editing practices. Of late, I see his name primarily in connection with Digwuren's peculiar views, which he rushes to second and endorse, whatever the context.[19][20] This campaign culminated in his ready endorsement of the "paranoid loon" characterization of myself with a barnstar. I urge the ArbCom to look closely at Piotr's regular pontification about civility in light of this revelatory incident. --Ghirla-трёп- 21:45, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I urge the ArbCom to look closely on whether we wish to see such hostile attitude as demonstrated in post above on this project.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  21:59, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Since I decided to report Ghirlas hijacking and retasking of article to administrators which lead to effective enforcement, thus making some people really angry. BTW Irpen, did you know that your conduct is not working anymore? :) Suva Чего? 08:57, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If you refresh your memory by following the diffs, you will easily discover that you referred to me as one of "the biggest trolls" "still throwing fæces around" several months before I registered such IRC feats as the wild accusations of sockpuppetry leveled by you against Dmcdevit, among others. --Ghirla-трёп- 21:45, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Content and Sources[edit]

re: my "conduct" -- Dear Irpen, everything I have contended editorially, everything I have put into an article, has been based on reputable sources. And when new sources have indicated old sources were incorrect, I updated the articles affected myself (e.g., the date the Baltics deportation order was signed)--and I still have some followups pending out there. You and Petri and Grafikm_fr et al. have done nothing but contend the Baltics were not occupied (or at least it's only a political interpretation no more valid than Russia's interpretation that the USSR did not occupy the Baltics), etc. You et al. have tagged articles repeatedly with not a single reputable source to back your contentions other than WP:IDONTLIKEIT, contended that Nazi and Soviet occupations are inappopriately mixed, that mixing occupations is Holocaust denial, ad nauseum. NOT ONE SINGLE REPUTABLE SOURCE HAS BEEN BROUGHT TO THE TABLE by anyone disputing the editorial content produced by Baltic and Eastern European editors--who would be motivated to have information, sources, etc. because of interest in their heritage. You et al. denounce articles produced by "nationalists" for "completely disputed" bias despite their being sourced voluminously, whereas you et al. who have not brought a single whit of substantive information to the table (by comparison, I'm sure there are tidbits here and there)--only your baseless editorial accusations. And when you et al. paint yourself as the "neutral" parties and are rightfully called to task for your contentions and behavior, you accuse others of plotting against you and accuse others of incivility which you provoked through your intellectually unethical editorial behavior and barrages of unsubstantiated unsourced tagging attacks.
   Once again, the Russian Duma declared Latvia joined the USSR legally according to international law, ergo no occupation. Let's have the sources backing up that contention, or stop tagging articles and stop attacking editors. I tire of your invitations to ArbCom, your threats against editors that ArbCom will not look kindly on XYZ behaviors, etc. You are not ArbCom, stop representing yourself as some sort of anti-uber-biased-nationalist Wiki-police.
   Now I am sure you will bring my uncivil tone to the attention of ArbCom. Please feel free to create another dedicated talk section to denounce my allegedly offensive behavior. Nothing changes. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 13:41, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Vecrumba, it has been explained to you ad naseum that WP:RS is only one of several components that are needed to add up to good article. A completely skewed ax grinding POV article can be written based entirely on sources. Putting a good article together requires honest and NPOV approach, avoidance of undue weight, staying on topic, encyclopedic scope, title, etc. All those Wikipedia masterpieces thoroughly lack any of that. --Irpen 15:45, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Irpen: Again, indulge this one microcosm: The Russian Duma says Latvia joined the USSR legally according to international law and therefore was not occupied. PRODUCE A SOURCE.
    Yours et al. endless contention that it's skewed nationalist axe-grinding on my et al. part to say Latvia (et al.) was occupied for the duration is hot air. Insisting articles be arranged so "occupation" is not in a title is also more hot air. PRODUCE A SOURCE. Not empty WP:STANDARDDUJOURWHICHISNOTCOMPLIEDWITHTODAY contentions. Repeating your blasts of hot air don't make them any more substantive.
    It's only a content dispute if you have a source. That you don't like the story the FACTS tell doesn't mean the story needs to be rearranged to ameliorate yours et al. personal (and again, UNSOURCED) interpretations of history. "Honesty" is about representing reputable sources factually, "honesty" is not about meeting your dictates regarding what you demand be represented as the neutral center. If side 1 = SOURCED and side 2 = UNSOURCED, then "neutral" does not mean (SOURCED+UNSOURCED)/2. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 16:14, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That the entire period of 1940-1991 constituted the "occupation" is a judgment albeit a sourced one. In such form it belongs to the text. I presented sources that speak of the history of the period without invoking this word. This shows that this is not a universally accepted judgment thus disqualifying it from applying to article titles. Take it back to the article's talk please. --Irpen 17:06, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I will take back there, but you continue to ignore again my request. Absence of a term does not imply absence of a condition. You insist that absence of a term (actively) equates directly to absence of condition to be represented as one half of neutrality--minimally, the "non-judgemental" version of history--the other half of neutrality being (in this case) a voluminous compendium of sources that say "occupied", but all "judgemental" (i.e., biased, skewed, etc.) according to you.
    Yours et al. very basis of arguing yours et al. position is a fallacious syllogism, that is: if a source doesn't mention it, it didn't happen (or it's at least a matter of interpretation whether or not it did, all positions to be equally represented without "judgement")--that is what is at issue here, not Latvia's occupation per se.
    The ("A") infinitely more probable "neutral" explanation is that there are no sources (in this case) explaining the factual basis for the Russian position because there is no such factual basis in the first place, not ("B") because no scholar on the entire planet thought that there was any need to examine or document the Russian position, per, for example, Anonimu's with reference to Romania, and I paraphase, (a) can't produce a source on "no occupation" because there's no need to write about something that's obviously true, and [therefore] (b) every source discussing occupation is "fiction".
    Wikipedia is about reputable sources, not syllogistic history.
    "Soviet occupation of Latvia ...-1991" is not a judgemental title if (a) the article's intent is to discuss aspects specific to the occupation as opposed to, say, knitting, and (b) there is not a single source to back the official Russian position as passed by a parliamentary declaration.
    Don't you get tired of arguing positions based on no references whatsoever? Building encyclopedia articles should involve discussing what sources say, resolving differences, and building a verifiable narrative. Building encyclopedia articles should not involve one party discussing sources...(per the above)... having to argue with another party railing on endlessly about what is implied about events by what is not written about, and whose only method of problem resolution is to file RfAs against editors of the former party when they run out of patience. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 18:47, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Irpen, you would have a point if the sources would use the opposite term, "liberation", or if they explicitly said that the occupation didn't happen or that the control of the country wasn't taken by military force. As Vecrumba points out, it's fallacious to say that the lack of the term means they're saying it didn't happen. Reinistalk 19:25, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
And I would also "chime in", as Irpen likes to put it.
Let us consider your claims in another context. For example, a scientist can write an article in peer-reviewed scientific journal about natural selection without mentioning the term evolution even once. However, this does not mean he supports creationism - and no other scientist would not even dream of it, unless ideas presented in the article support creationism or intelligent design.
But you - and other politically motivated editors - try to claim that not using word "occupation" by some sources means that those sources say it wasn't an occupation. As Vecrumba pointed out, it is a logical fallacy and invalid. Come out with sources that actively refute occupation - or admit WP:IDONTLIKEIT. -- Sander Säde 05:28, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You are mistaken in thinking that this page is the proper place for rehashing content issues again and again. Here we discuss your behavioural problems with a view toward determining whether you may be allowed to continue editing Wikipedia after multiple outbursts of incivility, such as berating more experienced editors as "Estonian-haters with silly conspiracy theories" and "trolls". Talking about "silly conspiracy theories" (as you term it), one such theory posits that the population of Estonia/Latvia could declare their national sovereignty and independence through an occupational authority (Supreme Soviet of Peoples' Representatives), whereupon the said occupational authority continued to govern these countries long after the declaration of independence was promulgated. This was probably the only instance in the annals of "democracy" (if this is the word) when a near majority of voters were stripped of their civic (and voting) rights by the supposedly democratically elected government they had voted for. Whether they were stripped of their rights for racist or retaliatory considerations (or both) I am not competent to judge, but I can be reasonably certain that this peculiar form of government does not qualify as democracy. --Ghirla-трёп- 21:08, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Care to give a source (in valid, i.e. Western peer-reviewed, scientific journal, please), so I could familiarize myself with this theory? Or will it left to be unsourced, same as usual for your accusations and conspiracy theories? In any case, the theory is laughable - as is your conclusion "stripped of their rights for racist or retaliatory considerations". You know it to be wrong as well as I do, but sadly you continue repeating Russian propaganda like a broken record. -- Sander Säde 06:31, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ghirla, I admire your command of Soviet-style procurator prosecution:

  • "You are mistaken in thinking that this page is the proper place for rehashing content issues again and again. Here we discuss your behavioural problems..."

Irpen, the same:

  • "I would only welcome if the ArbCom would finally stop limiting its scope to the blalant violation of 3-4 Wikipedia policies and addressed the ethical conduct as well..."

Not talking about your alleging anything, declaring behavioral issues, blatant violations of numerous Wikipolicies, as if it were already proven to be so. Just the same way you freely threaten editors with ArbCom bannings, etc. as if your contentions of poor behavior are proven so simply by their utterance on your part.
    Meanwhile, amid protestations of Baltic and Eastern European editorial collusion, Irpen, you monitor the contributions of quite a number of editors--whose views you share, telling them to cool down to avoid being banned. Never have I seen a more cynical abuse of policies for the purpose of wrecking the very thing which they are designed to protect. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 18:32, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Baseless accusations: a case study[edit]

I have a compelling set of evidence of Irpen making baseless accusations towards me and another editor, who is not a party in this arbitration case, and refusing to back down even after having been given a generous opportunity to do so. I believe this evidence demonstrates gross violation of the fundamental Wikipedia policies of WP:CIV and WP:NPA on behalf of Irpen, and the conduct demonstrated therein is a part of a larger campaign of harassment -- also, in violation of Wikipedia policy.

However, this set of evidence contains clips of logs from Wikipedia's IRC channels, which are not to be logged publically. Accordingly, I'm not sure how to proceed. Is there a standard procedure I could use? ΔιγυρενΕμπροσ! 03:05, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Related discussions I've found indicate you can't use what is said on an IRC channel as evidence in ArbCom cases as it is unofficial. #wikipedia-en, for example, is not the official IRC channel for en.wikipedia--no official IRC channel exists for any Wikimedia Foundation project. Perhaps someone with more expertise can comment? —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 04:35, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The good thing is that I don't need to rely on things said on this channel. At issue is that Irpen has claimed that a specific thing happened on the channel, and by presenting a log, I can conclusively demonstrate it never happened. Thus, unofficiality shouldn't be a problem. ΔιγυρενΕμπροσ! 05:42, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think Arbitrators can accept such items via email or other private channel. I'd suggest you inquire on clerk's talk page.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  05:03, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. The problem with clerks, though, is there are so many to choose from ... Why can't there be just Wikipedia talk:Arbitration clerks? ΔιγυρενΕμπροσ! 05:42, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
So many? I think they are too few, just like ArbComers. Poor guys are overloaded, hence their apparent lack of replies to discussions in ArbCom cases :( And I am afraid a 'clerk talk' would get swamped just like other discussion pages...-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  18:05, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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